


the wind that shakes the mountain

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Battle, Drabble Sequence, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Minor Violence, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-08 07:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15238452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: The tale of Mazlav, daughter of Temolv, chieftain of the Uzba clan; and of how she met her lover and companion-in-arms, Aalta of Ishahú.





	1. Mazlav And The Uzba

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/gifts).



> Each chapter is a double or triple drabble (aside from the last, which is a straight drabble), and together they form a drabble series. They all come to either 200 or 300 words by the count of Microsoft Word.
> 
> For the place names and geography of Eastern Middle-earth I'm using this map: https://i.imgur.com/tbSczMo.jpg but using my own worldbuilding and populations.

Mazlav greets the morning, bending her hands to the fire that rises in the eastern sky.  _The earth is good_ , she intones,  _And I am strong that walks upon it._

They each make the morning greeting alone, and she is the first; it is her right as chief. 

Descending the ridge will plunge her back into the hustle of the encampment, with all its petty squabbles, all the quibbling concerns and rightful fears. But at the crest of the mountain there is only the sky, the rock, and her, alone; Mazlav, daughter of Temolv, the chieftain of the Uzba clan.

 

The Uzba love the North; the cool, dark forests, the soaring snow-topped mountains, the bleak, stony shorelines. They never linger in one place long.

The cold reminds Mazlav of her childhood; bare feet slipping on the rough shingle beach as she ran down to the shoreline, her sister's screams as they threw themselves into the ice-cold water. Their mother watching from further up the shore, one eye on them as she supervised the pitching of tents and building of fires. Mazlav couldn't see it, but she knew her mother would be smiling.

Now she watches the waves, and smiles herself.

 

Mazlav's people are hunters and trappers, and they live simply off the land. 

It was a revelation, for Mazlav's mother's mother, to find a land where survival was not a hard scrabble for crumbs of nothing in the choking dust and ashes. When she and her people escaped the grip of the Black Hand, they were prepared to die for their freedom; but in their dreams they saw life, and a land of their own. 

The North is no land of plenty, but it is not the gasping, suffocating hells of Angband; and that, for them, is more than enough. 

 

 

 


	2. The People Of The East

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a minor, passing mention of cannibalism.

The Uzba are not alone in their land; they are one of many.

There are other orc clans; some escapees from the west, and others who broke free far earlier. Some walked the earth before Mazlav was even a ripple in her mother's thought, and some have never known the tyranny of the Black Hand. 

And some were not orcs, once.

Some clans draw up treaties of peace between themselves, and some have casual, informal friendships that spring up as they grow used to their changing land. They are peaceful, for the most part; they understand the importance of freedom.

 

Then there are the dwarves - the stone-delvers, the people of the mountains. There are the northern dwarves, with their snappish, curt-sounding language and towering, fire-filled halls; and there are their friendlier cousins, who build great harbours on their peninsula to the east. Sometimes trading caravans come from even further afield, up from the jungle-covered south. These dwarves are dark-skinned and black-eyed, with ornaments of flashing silver, and they trade eagerly for all the furs and good lumber the Uzba can collect. They are friendly, so long as the Uzba are willing to trade; but their axes are always sharp.

   
  
And then there are the Avari; the many tribes of the elves.

There are the savage, cannibalistic Avari from Avikangsdan, whose bright white hair helps them blend with the thick snow. There are the nomads of the plains who move with the seasons, and the veiled, dark-eyed Avari who throng through the huge city-states away in the south. There are the seafarers from Kosth who ply the seas around the dwarven harbours of Angval, preyed on by the pirates from Uet; and there are the Uzba's neighbours, the silent, stalking tribes of Ishahú, who move through the woods like shadows.

 

 


	3. The Snow Fox Fur

For once, Mazlav sees the Avari before the elf sees her.

She's one of the Isharin, slinking along in the shadows of the undergrowth, bow in hand. Mazlav has been crouched at the bottom of this bank for hours, waiting for the snow fox to return to its den. The fur will fetch a high price in the hands of the traders, and Mazlav will be damned before she sees her effort wasted, her prize snatched by a sneaking elf.

The elf comes within three paces of her hiding place, still unaware; and Mazlav leaps, hands outstretched, from the undergrowth.

 

Mazlav can feel the Isharin's pulse pounding under her hands, but the elf does not show her fear. "Release me," she spits, baring her teeth.

"This den is mine. Find another," Mazlav growls down at her, hands locked around her neck.

The dark eyes flit to the bank, where the entrance to the fox den is clear to see; and then back to Mazlav. "Agreed. Let me go."

Mazlav removes her hands, and the elf is up and gone, disappearing like a breath of wind into the trees. "If you return, I will kill you," Mazlav warns the silent forest.

 

 


	4. The Uzba And The War

It is many years before Mazlav sees the elf again.

Now the dwarves of the eastern mountains wage war on their northern brethren, and Mazlav and her clan are caught in the middle. If she had her choice, they would melt into the secrecy of the forest, not embroil themselves in the dwarves' struggle; but so many of her clan resent the northerners, and have often thought how rich the iron and gold under those mountains would make them. Not all the clan is content with their life in the wood; and so they join the dwarves of the east.

 

The Isharin do not join the fight as a group, but members of their tribe lend their skills to the eastern army - in return for good payment.

They are three months into the campaign, camped in the bitter cold of the northern autumn, when Mazlav sees the Isharin woman again. She perches on a rock over their camp, her short curved bow in hand, swathed in thick grey wolf furs. A lookout.

When her eyes meet Mazlav's, she thinks there is a spark of recognition there, but the elf does not acknowledge her, so Mazlav turns, leaves her be.

 

In the morning, Mazlav takes to a high place above the camp to greet the day. It's a rough scramble up to the ridge over the camp, but Mazlav relishes the challenge. 

When she completes the ritual and turns to leave, the Isharin is sitting behind her, watching with dark eyes.

"You wish something?" Mazlav asks, curt and harsh.

The Isharin makes a gesture of respect. "The dwarves want a party to advance up the river. I will scout. Will the Uzba follow?"

For a moment, Mazlav considers. "The clan will decide," she says, motioning for the elf to follow.

 

 


	5. The Fall Of Uz Bekar

The clan elects to advance up the river.

They move through the trees on the western bank, hiding under their tall eaves, in the clinging shadows. The river’s eastern bank falls away into a land of flat shingle all the way down to the coast; Angclax, the Blasted Shore.

"If we can reach the source of the river undetected, we will be close to Uz Bekar," the Isharin tells Mazlav over their nightly fire.

Mazlav snorts. "We will never reach Uz Bekar undetected. The dwarf city is too well guarded." 

The Isharin only smiles.

Her name is Aalta of Ishahú.

 

There are watchtowers above the course of the river, but Aalta knows ways to pass them unseen. They creep up the banks under the cover of darkness, crawling into grim, cold cracks in the rock to hide during daylight. Night by night they advance, unmarked, secret and silent.

"We will reach Uz Bekar by tomorrow's dawn," Aalta announces.

"And the Angvalians will not be there to meet us," Mazlav counters, "They could not have advanced this far."

"They committed their entire army to the northern road," Aalta says, "The Uz Bekar cannot counter them."

Perhaps - but Mazlav is doubtful.

 

Once again, Aalta is as good as her word.

The Angvalians storm the gates of Uz Bekar, while the elf leads the Uzba through a high, secret tunnel. Once inside, the Uzba sow chaos, carving their way to the throne room in an ecstasy of blood.

They win the war for the Angvalians.

Many of Mazlav's people wish to remain in Uz Bekar, to build new lives from the ashes, but not Mazlav.

Aalta catches her as she's leaving the gate. "You do not wish to stay?"

Mazlav casts one look over her shoulder. "This is no home of mine."

 

 


	6. Aalta In The Land Of Und

Later, people dub her the Hero of Uz Bekar. The most adventurous venture into the forest in hopes of meeting her.

Over the years the Uzba - what few of them do not live in Uz Bekar, anyway - drift apart. Mazlav lets them go; she will lead only the faithful.

She is no longer Mazlav of the Uzba; now she introduces herself as Mazlav of Und, taking her name from her land, from the low hills and dark forests and winding river, the place she has always loved.

This is the name she gives, when Aalta of Ishahú returns.

 

When Mazlav returns from greeting the morning, Aalta of Ishahú is waiting.

"I do not recall giving you leave to enter my land," Mazlav says, taking her seat by the fire.

Aalta watches her with light dancing in her dark eyes. "I do not recall needing it."

"It would be more prudent to ask." Someone hands her bread, and she rips off a hunk of it with her teeth, cracking through the thick crust. "What do you want?" she asks, blunt and brusque.

"To see the land of Und."

Aalta's motives have never been simple; but Mazlav will humour her.

 

Aalta stalks through the hills like the panthers that inhabit her home, quick and quiet and almost invisible in the brush. Often Mazlav catches sight of her, in the corner of her eye; sometimes she thinks she is being followed.

Three months after her arrival, Aalta comes before Mazlav at the evening fire, and announces her plans to depart.

"And have you seen the land of Und, Aalta of Ishahú?" Mazlav asks.

Aalta smiles. "Not yet. But with your leave, I will return."

Mazlav considers her for a long moment. "Then you have it, if that is what you want."

 

 


	7. Mazlav In The Land Of Ishahú

Aalta returns on a breath of spring, the day the first ambyline opens her petals on the hill above Mazlav's winter camp.

"I have been thinking," the elf says, seated across the fire from Mazlav, swathed in furs.

"Avari are always thinking," Mazlav says.

"You've no interest?"

"Did I say that?"

"'Twas implied."

Mazlav shrugs. "You are always welcome to speak your mind."

"I was thinking you ought to come to Ishahú with me."

Mazlav gives the elf a flat look. "Why would I do that?"

Aalta smiles. "Because I would show you my home, as you showed me yours."

 

In the end, Mazlav agrees. 

The land of Ishahú is to the south; a great plain shaped like an upended horn, open at the bottom and surrounded on all other sides by thick forest.

Aalta introduces Mazlav to her people, who live in small homesteads dotted around the plain and in the woodland. They are a people of simple farms and warm fires, long hunts through thick forests and brief, sweet, sunburst summers. Many of them know the name of Mazlav, Hero of Uz Bekar. 

It is nice, Mazlav thinks, to travel a land for a reason other than war. 

 

Mazlav agrees to stay until the end of midsummer. They spend the last week before her departure in Tabra, the largest city of Ishahú. 

The main square is awash with colour, as dancers dressed in flowing, rainbow-hued robes spin across the cobbles. The Midsummer Festival here lasts an entire week, full of dancing and drinking and celebration of the richness of life.

"You've enjoyed your time here," Aalta says, as they watch the sun going down behind the huge festival bonfire.

Despite herself, Mazlav smiles. "Yes; I have come to like the land of Ishahú.

Together, they share a smile.

 

 


	8. The Mountain That Bends

In her own language, Aalta gives her the name  _Vuori Joka Taipuu._

When Mazlav tells her that's too long to be a name, Aalta just laughs. 

They are not always together. Aalta flits between lands and cities and towns like a bright summer butterfly, never in one place for long. Mazlav travels, but in her heart she always misses home. 

They spend long evenings together in the twilight of Und's brief summers, lying in the soft grass watching the stars, and Aalta calls her  _Vuori Joka Taipuu_ , The Mountain That Bends.

Mazlav calls her  _habkez_ ; the meaning is simple.

 _Beloved_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently Tolkien intended to base one tribe of Avari on Finnish people, so I've used a vaguely Finnish name for Aalta, and (very rough) Finnish for her name for Mazlav.
> 
> Thank you for the great prompts - I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
